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New Year’s etc.

I’ve been pretty bad on updating this since Cyclo-X Nationals. Sorry. I’ve been trying to catch up on regular life things, plus the holidays. I did the normal holiday things and went up to Cable Wisconsin to cross country ski for a couple weeks and build a shower for the “garage” we build up there a couple year’s ago at Dennis Kruse’s compound.

It’s a good time to be up in Northern Wisconsin. Lots of snow this year. Plus, lots of events and people travelling in from all over the country. The first weekend was a double birkie ski which is an unofficial event organized by Tom Schuler that skis the birkie both directions. It’s somewhere between 90 and 100 km depending on if you get lost skiing into Telemark Resort for the lunch stop. The Senior Nationals were held the same time pretty close, so alot of the best skiers in the country were in and out of the area. Last weekend, the 24 Hours of Telemark was held. It’s a 24 hour race with a ton of different catagories for teams and individua skiers. Finally, the Seeley Classic, a 42 km classic event promoted by Dennis and the Seeley Ski Team. So, there is lots of stuff to do, other than skiing, snowshoeing, chopping wood, bear cave viewing (bear included), etc.

Plus, I’ve been meaning to finish a bathroom in the “Kansas garage” that I started a few months back. Now, the building is pretty complete. Super nice place to stay. Dennis has more people coming through his compound that can be imagined. If he had a guest book, it would include names of superstar athletes from multitudes of sport. Cycling-Greg Lemond, Ned Overend, Travis Brown, Kent Eriksen, Bob Roll, Joe Parkin, Jeff Bradley, Tom Schuler, Davis Phinney, etc. etc. Skiing, the same quality and quantity of names. Plus journalists, photographers and a million other interesting people.

Anyway, I thought I was gaining a bunch of weight, but was pretty happy to get back to Kansas yesterday having gained only a couple extra pounds. And, I’d been in a car 12 hours and hadn’t exercised all day. Went riding for the first time in a while yesterday. Low 30’s and humid. Windchill is incredible, huh? I under dressed, which I rarely do. My fingers never got warm. I was skiing 25 degrees colder with super thing gloves. Riding with the thickest things I can fit on my hands and still get my fingers to bend. And still cold.

I was observing yesterday how quickly form leaves. It seemed like it tooknearly the whole ride to get pedaling in a somewhat normal rotation. Plus, every small rise seemed like a big hill. Streets I thought are dead flat seemed mountainous. Pretty weird.